September 12, 2009

Back to our small family :o)

The foster kids left last week and we are back to our small family of 4 kids :O) I know that's not small to most people, but it's SO quiet around here and my kids are longing for more playmates :o)J had his first day of Special Ed for the year on Wednesday. He's loving his new teacher and friends, and was excited to be there. He did a great job!P started Kindergarten on Thursday and I went with her for the day. I let her ride the bus and then went to the school myself. It was good to meet her aid, teacher, and all of the different ladies that will be working with her during the day. She has probably 8 or more different ladies that will be helping with her during various times. Her teacher, aid, resource worker, lunchtime lady (also the school social worker-awesome lady), adaptive phy ed teacher, speech teacher, PT, OT, and probably a couple more. It seems kind of scary but I already knew almost all of them from the last 2 years that she's been there. I kind of like having more than one person because it keeps check on her and what's going on. In her class there is the teacher, her aid, and the regular class aid. There are 24 kids in the class in all. I LOVE her teacher. She's young and energetic, and such a sweet lady.A & W started school here on Tuesday. It was a tough start for W because he, for some reason, thought when I said that we were quitting Connections Academy to "have more time to do fun stuff and field trips with our home school group" that it meant we would be doing all fun and games, lol! It took him quite a while and some major meltdowns to get the work done for the day. I held my ground though. I never allow my kids to whine their way our of doing an assignment I've given them. That would open a huge can of worms that we aren't even going near. We later had a nice talk about the importance of education and how smart he is. I honestly think he's an "advanced placement" kid, but he would rather stare at the wall and do nothing. He's a grade ahead in Math and reads great. It's quite impressive for a kid with FASD who just turned 6, however it comes with a dedicated Mother who won't allow him to quit. If he were in public school I guarantee he would fail because he can be so slow and distracted. If given the extra time, and several repeats of the instructions at times, he's brilliant. If it were up to him he'd go to public school in a heartbeat because he's never been there and thinks is SO wonderful. But for now, we're not even going there :o)"A" is a dedicated homeschooler :o) She LOVES being home with me, adores her home school playgroup friends (and some public school friends), and just thrives in the extra attention and hands-on instruction. She loves having the extra time to do crafts and practice piano, and is content to NEVER go back to public school.I'm very excited that Fall is on the way and Winter is coming. Fall is such a beautiful season, and I LOVE the clean whiteness of Winter. I always hope for an early snowfall so we can enjoy the beauty of it. I also like that the bugs are gone :O), and I can bake and cook and not worry about heating up the house all the time. The smell of fresh baked goodies in a closed-up house is marvelous.My garden is doing FABULOUS! All of my tomatoes that I had started in my house are growing strong out there, as well as the row of tomatoes that I planted as seeds. The seed ones aren't much smaller than the ones I started inside either. The cool Summer has kept them from turning red though so I'm hoping that they will finally turn red before the first freeze. I have tons of them out there just waiting to be picked. I've started bringing them in and ripening them in paper bags, but I don't want to have to do it with them all. However, the ones ripened in the house are much nicer looking. I also have got tons of carrots out there. I have picked quite a bunch of green beans, a few peas, some cucumbers, chili peppers, and broccoli. The long-neck squash just keep on coming and my Mom has made applesauce-squash muffins with it. They are awesome! We also have 1 cantaloupe growing out there and it's SO CUTE! Our pumpkins came up too and we have about 10 that are getting pretty big. A few grew out of the fence so we're hoping that the deer don't get them :0) We kind of overdid it on the lettuce. You can only eat it so fast and it all comes up at once. Next year I'll plant a few feet each week so it won't get so out of hand. And ONCE AGAIN!!!!! my watermelons didn't come up :o( I'm making notes for next year of the things I'll change. 1. The lettuce, as mentioned before. 2. We are going to grow the pumpkins and squash out in the back yard in a big pile of soil, so they can get crazy without taking up so much space. 3. I want vining green beans because I got WAY MORE when I used those last year! I'm also going to plant a lot more of them because we eat them like crazy. 4. I learned this year to stake up my vining peas because they rot on the ground :o( 5. I'm going to plant my tomatoes all around the fence line so I can just tie them to it and not have to pound stakes all over. The ones I did tie to the fence stayed there beautifully :o) 6. I won't let the kids plant a row of wildflowers in the middle next year because it blocks the sprinklers :o) However, my redneck self, had hubby put a metal green fence post into the ground and duct tape the sprinkler to it so now it's 3 feet off the ground and working great :O) hehe7. I'm going to combine my rows and make my isles larger. That way I can plant in larger sections, instead of long skinny rows.8. I'm going to plant a ton more cucumbers because the kids love them and I also want to slice them and make dill pickles for the kids, since all the store ones have dye in them! (I'm SO hoping that someday healthy will out win pretty :o)9. I'm going to plant earlier, because damn it, if it freezes, I'll just do it over :o) I'd rather take the chance and have earlier veggies.10. I'm going to sit all of my flowering baskets in the garden to get the twice daily watering until they are blooming bright and ready to hang. Otherwise, they get forgotten and don't go very far :o)Well, back to the laundry I go :o) Have a great weekend!